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The scent of her anxiety toward the situation was staining the air around them. It wasn’t that she feared him or was truly afraid, but often, when someone sensed the ultimate bite coming, their flight or fright kicked in. Morlie’s body drew so tight that her pussy was strangling his dick.

And the sick wolfish bastard that he was, he reveled in it and fucked her harder.

“Um...wait...maybe—”

“Trust me, little bunny. Trust me.”

She inhaled, then swallowed. “Okaaay. I—”

Her piercing scream cut off her words as Chanin's jaws snapped into her flesh and surrounded her trapezius muscle, his upper and lower canines burrowing deep.

He held tight to her and allowed his serum to seep into the holes and flood her bloodstream, beginning the process that would alter her DNA.

Morlie bucked against his hold first, and then her body shook, an uncontrollable orgasm overtaking her. One for her became two for him that turned into three for her and a fourth for him...on and on.

Neither of them could stop coming. He was no longer thrusting but just buried himself to the hilt and allowed the climaxes to rocket through him, explosions of ecstasy. He became lightheaded from the sensuous pleasure and mentally floated high above the earth with his mate.

Finally, the stream of serum stopped, and he unlocked his jaw and pulled his mouth away.

He looked down at the bite; it was vicious, bloody, and angry. The holes were gaped, and red and purple discoloration was starting on her skin. He allowed saliva to pool in his mouth as he shifted closer again, taking his time to lick across her wound until he covered every bit of raw flesh.

Slumped in his arms, Morlie barely let out a hiss of pain or a moan as he tended to her.

Pulling his cock from her, it finally began to soften as he laid Morlie on the bed.

He reached for the light and turned it off, then collected the top sheet from the end of the bed, where it bunched from their erotic madness.

Curling his body along her back, he pulled the sheet up over them.

Holding his mate in his arms and knowing she was now his filled him with joy and pride.

“Chanin, did I...? How did I...?”

“Shh, rest.” He slipped an arm around her, ensuring she was safe through the remainder of the night. All too soon, her change would start. “You did good, little bunny. So good.”

~YH~

“100013, let’s go.”

Pulling herself up on her narrow bunk, Avalore stared at the short, stout woman with a shaggy, odd shade of dirty, strawberry-blonde hair. The look on the handler’s face was neutral, void of expression, oblivious to the people locked behind the thick steel doors.

Whenever someone called her number or the number of one of the other women volunteers, Avalore wanted to shake her head, roll her eyes, or laugh.

There were only thirteen of them currently on the lab detail.

Why did the people in charge assign such large numbers instead of just numbers one, two, three, four. .. and so on?

It was why she and the other women hired as volunteers for the lab simply called each other their actual number.

There weren’t even ten thousand people combined between the Dispatch and the Consumers.

For some reason, they didn’t want them to use their first names, their real names.

When they all started, the clinicians told them the numbers would keep their privacy and anonymity when their details were over in the lab.

They’d been there for almost a month, and late in the night, when they were left alone, Avalore and her roommate spoke each other’s name as they got to know one another with whispered words.

Using family nicknames on occasion—Ava and Mich—exercising their voices until sleep overtook them, trying to drown out the strange noises and sounds that sometimes echoed along the corridors.

Avalore had a sister who had moved out of their parents’ small apartment to live with the father of her second baby.

She didn’t begrudge her younger sister Kelsey, who took the government up on the breeders' stipend. In the district, everyone did what they could to survive. Since their mother was crushed in one of the compactors and their father remarried another woman and now fought the beginning stages of illness, there was pressure on her and her sister. Her father’s new wife moved in, and three small kids of her own crowded the small apartment.

At first, Ava and her sister worked tirelessly at whatever little jobs they could find to add pennies to their account, hoping to save enough to help her father get treatment and get their own place.

Ava wished she could have acquired a better position so her sister would not have had to sell the space in her womb for account credits that didn’t even last until the child was one year old.

The reason Kelsey was on her second pregnancy at the age of seventeen was because the government posted campaigns that urged females as young as sixteen to help repopulate the Earth. Even with their stepmother’s urging, Avalore refused to go that route.

This position Avalore signed up for would help the government discover a cure to stop the spread of XD87867.

Avalore and her roommate were honest with each other at night about how they didn’t expect to be locked in and cut off from family outside the lab center.

The scientists and doctors told them it was for their health and safety and to keep them monitored.

Avalore wasn’t sure if that was true. But she could tolerate it as long as she saw the weekly deposits on her account. Besides, they wouldn’t be here forever.

Taking a moment, she glanced over at her roommate’s bunk.

Michaela, number twelve, lay balled up with her back to the room and her.

The other woman had been in the same position during the last three days.

It concerned Avalore, but she didn’t know how to help Michaela, and her roommate wouldn’t talk or share what happened to her the last time she went to the lab.

When Ava asked the clinicians about her roommate’s odd behavior, they told her Michaela had a reaction to one of the procedures and just needed rest and to eat.

However, Michaela was resting, or at least she lay in her bed with her eyes closed most of the day, but she refused to eat even a bite of the trays they brought to her.

“Come on, 100013. Time is of the essence.”

“Where am I going?”

Usually, they didn’t come to get them in the evenings. And Avalore hoped they would let her rest. Her body was sore; arms, hips, and ass. In the weeks they’d been here, Avalore and the other women became pin cushions, either having plasma and blood taken or given medication after medication.

The day they arrived, they were all pulled out one by one, examined more thoroughly than Avalore believed was necessary by male and female clinicians, then given a mark, some whitish color tattoo in an obscene place on their body.

It was a circle with three lines crossing it, but the middle was longer than the other.

It took them less than thirty, but the tattoo hurt like hell, and the inside of Avalore’s upper right thigh swelled and throbbed for two days.

When she questioned the mark, the clinicians said it was medicine to assist with reactions.

Why there? Why not simply place it on their arm?

A few days later, they were all hooked up to machines to have their blood ‘cleaned’ and inserted into them again.

That experience made them all sick, vomiting for more than a day. If the supposed medication mark had helped, she wondered then, as she often did, what would their reaction have been without the meds—death?

Avalore hadn’t expected this position to be so challenging on her body, but she couldn’t let herself regret doing it if it saved lives.

“They need help in the kitchen.”

Excited to do something physical instead of having another physical or getting pricked, Avalore got up.

They explained that sometimes they would have the opportunity to earn a little extra by serving or cleaning.

She could only hope they would let them stay in the providence and work once they had finished with her in the lab.

The employment spots in the Consumer section were exclusive and coveted.

Hitching a thumb toward Michaela, she asked, “What about her? Should I get her?”

The volunteer shook her head. “No. Volunteer 100012 will remain.”

Regardless of the handler’s impatience, Avalore walked close to her roommate’s bunk; seeing her roommate’s normally long form looking so small, folded under a sheet, caused worry to grip her stomach. “Twelve, I’ll be back.”

The only response she got from Michaela was her roommate’s body shifting and drawing into a tighter ball.

Avalore sighed soft and low as she went to the door.

Not saying anything further, the stout woman stepped back to allow her to leave the room.

Quickly, the door was shut and locked.

Avalore followed the woman to the left as if taking her to the lab.

Instead, she went to a side door, punched in a code, and led Avalore through it.

Avalore recognized the wide, polished hallway as the entrance they came through when they first arrived.

She recalled thinking how lucky she was to work in the providence, such opulence.

Even though none of the lavishness went beyond the solid door into the sterile, white clinic area or the cold, barren rooms they slept in.

The woman led her through anotherr door and entered a massive, busy kitchen.

The smell and sight of so much delicious, extravagant, foods Ava had never seen, smelled, or even known existed.

Her mind had no name for most things on plates, spoons, and small bowls.

Over the hustle and bustle of the people in the space, she heard the muffled notes of music coming through the swinging door across the room.

“I have a worker here.”